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The UAE army has been working for years to strengthen its military capability, yet only a small percentage of its operational staff actually hold UAE passports, it has emerged.

The role of private security contractors in Middle Eastern conflicts has been connected to numerous reports of human rights violations – but their central role in running the UAE’s military is rarely examined.

Reports first emerged in 2015 that the UAE was sending mercenaries to fight in Yemen, choosing not to send its own citizens to fight in the chaos.

Sudanese Janjaweed, Colombians, South African and other foreign troops are all being trained and dispatched by ex-military experts from France, the UK and Australia in the UAE’s presidential guard.

The top officer in the Presidential Guard is an Australian citizen called Mike Hindmarsh, while responsibility for recruitment was delegated to a UAE firm called Reflex Responses Company, also known as R2.

Reflex Responses Company (R2)

R2 was founded in 2010 by a United States military contractor called Erik Prince, the same year the former US Navy SEAL officer moved to the UAE – and only months after he sold his stake in the ‘controversial’ mercenary firm, Blackwater.

The name Blackwater is not popular in the Middle East as a result. Earlier this week, 52 Iraqi MPs called on Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi earlier this week to cancel contracts with Olive Group over its links to Erik Prince’s UAE firm.